It is as Bob Cringely admits early in his post, a very negative column about IBM.
A month ago I began hearing about impending layoffs at IBM, but what could I say beyond “layoffs are coming?” This time my first clues came not from American IBMers but from those working for Big Blue abroad. Big layoffs were coming, they feared, following an earnings shortfall that caused panic in Armonk with the prospect that IBM might after all miss its long-stated earnings target for 2015. Well the layoffs began hitting a couple weeks ago just before I went into an involuntary technical shutdown trying to move this rag from one host to another. So I, who like to be the first to break these stories, have to in this case write the second day lede: what does it all mean?
It means the IBM that many of us knew in the past is gone and the IBM of today has management that is, frankly, insane.
As predicted by Bob, the comments are overwhelming negative as well.
And what of the reference in the comments to the City of Austin? It seems that “Smarter Planet” sometimes isn’t as smart as the advertisements lead you to believe. See the link below for an article from a reporter in Austin.
Regardless, from the comments and some back channel conversations I’ve seen, the article is spot on.
Link: statesman.com: IBM blames City of Austin for ongoing billing problems, says it’s owed $4 million
Gregg Eldred 
IBM’s plan is simply to replace all US based employees with a canned tweet engine that sends out insidious IBM branded canned tweets. They are a social business you know. They *get* this stuff apparently. Maybe this is what Watson was built for.
IBM has hardly cornered the market on bad management. This is the new accepted behavior for large corporations. Full-time direct employees are inconvenient and shall be replaced with contractors.
Except of course for the management layers, which receive increased compensation for their strategic brilliance and PowerPoint skills.
The problem with Cringely is that he is telling his “IBM is doomed” story for a decade now and they are still going quite strong.
For so many years I thought you can’t do solid sustainable business like this and IBM proved me wrong each and every quarter.